{"id":3721,"date":"2012-07-24T21:16:34","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T02:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=3721"},"modified":"2012-07-24T21:16:34","modified_gmt":"2012-07-25T02:16:34","slug":"just-how-to-show-youre-an-intellectual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=3721","title":{"rendered":"Just how to show you’re an intellectual"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Leef at NRO<\/a> makes the case that liberals are confused about who the party of stupid is.  Here's his main argument:<\/p>\n

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If conservatives are anti-intellectual, why did so many read Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom<\/em> after Glenn Beck mentioned it last year?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It's not clear what the rhetorical question is supposed to show. Is it that conservatives, generally, are intellectuals — so they read books plugged by folks on Fox News — or is it that there are genuine conservative intellectuals (like Hayek), and the proof that they're intellectuals is that they get read, and others don't?  If the first, is the fact of reading proof of being intellectuals?  Not yet, and moreover, it's not that clear that all those copies of The Road to Serfdom <\/em>got read — they just got bought.<\/em>  If the latter, just how is it that being widely read is proof of being an intellectual?  It proves that you write stuff that people like, but that's not yet being intellectual.  And conservatives should know that, as they are so regularly bucking the stream of what they see as popular thought.  I assume that Leef is taking the former line of thought, as he follows with the second rhetorical question, <\/p>\n

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Why would Forbes<\/em> publish intellectual-rich content like this piece<\/a> by Professor Art Carden?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I suppose the thought is that because Forbes <\/em>publishes intellectually<\/strong>-rich content, there must be a market for it in its readership, which is conservative.  And so conservatives are intellectuals.  First question: how many conservatives read Forbes<\/em> instead of The Weekly Standard<\/em> or Human Events<\/em>?  That's nut-picking for your evidence — like if I wanted to make the case that Liberals are really intellectuals, I'd only look at The New Republi<\/em>c.   <\/em>Second question: how does the fact that your magazine has intellectually rich content prove you're an intellectual?  I know lots of folks who read, on the liberal side, The New Yorker<\/em>, and they've got very little going on in their heads.  It's the thing to have in your book bag.  <\/p>\n

I know a better way to tell someone is an intellectual: not to ask whether they've read the best minds of their own side, but whether they've read and understood the best minds of the other side.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Leef at NRO makes the case that liberals are confused about who the party of stupid is.  Here's his main argument: If conservatives are anti-intellectual, why did so many read Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom after Glenn Beck mentioned it last year? It's not clear what the rhetorical question is supposed to show. Is … Continue reading Just how to show you’re an intellectual<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,58],"tags":[1433,1967,1432],"class_list":["post-3721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hasty-generalization","category-lack-of-evidence","tag-gerrymandered-evidence","tag-hasty-generalization","tag-intellectuals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3722,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721\/revisions\/3722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}